ARCHITECTURE
Everything done in a mix of medieval blues and browns. Many textures are familiar from either the standard Quake texes, or some other popular texture sets like IKBlue. There were a couple I didn't recognize, but they all fitted together well to describe a kind of runic maze feel.

The layout of the level is very complex, but the author guides you from one part to the next with ease. I only got lost once, because I though the hallway I was supposed to progress sown was a dead end (the back was was dark so I figured that it was a cubby-hole). There aren't really any impressive structures, but the whole design is clean and well made, especially the multiple areas where you find yourself back in or next to somewhere you'd been earlier.

 

[Kona] has seen fit to include a number of custom monsters in this one, with mixed results. The axemen of doom return from Coven of Ebony, and they fit in with the theme well, and at the pace they move at, provide a good pressure opponent. Some of the HellKnights have custom skins, these guys are a little harder than normal, otherwise no difference. Same for the reskinned Knights, again using a skin seen before in CoE. There's also some nail-firing ogres that wear the boss-ogre skin from one of the mission packs. These are possibly my least favourite of the 'modified' monsters, because they dont just fire nails, oh no. They jump and move at insane speeds too.

In addition to the modified monsters, there are two new ones, also seen in previous maps. Neither fit well into the theme of the map. One is the Snakeman, wielding twin uzis. The other is the Scorpion from Scourge of Armagon, a monster which I really hate, and again doesn't fit into the theme.

 

ITEMS

Early on, I found health especially sparse, and there are only a very few armours available. As you progress though, you start to get more and more ammo, although health is still encountered infrequently. All weapons are present and correct except for the Thunderbolt, and the weapons are awarded in the usual progressive style, with the exception of the super-shotgun, which you start off with.

 

The first third of the map is fairly tense, when you are coming up against fairly tough monsters with little health and ammo. However, when the ammo starts to flow in the remainder of the map, things start to heat up and the level becomes immense fun, tackling the gobs and gobs of monsters that are thrown at you with the plentiful nails and rockets. The ending is a good, but a little less health might have made it a bit more of a challenge.

 

Tense to start with, then turns into a great blast-fest. Get it.